


Fallen Off The Edge

by Val_Creative



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Affection, Angst and Feels, BAMF Wanda Maximoff, Character Death Fix, Conflict of Interests, Dark Magic, Dysfunctional Family, Fix-It, Good Sibling Pietro Maximoff, Introspection, Magic, Mild Language, POV Pietro Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Season/Series Finale, Superpowers, Telepathic Bond, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:52:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29888292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative
Summary: "We can't reverse death… if I was supposed to die in Sokovia, then that was it.""You were supposed to live," Scarlet Witch murmurs, tilting her head eerily."So now you will."
Relationships: Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff
Comments: 6
Kudos: 72





	Fallen Off The Edge

**Author's Note:**

> (For clarification: This is about MCU Wanda's Pietro Maximoff, not Ralph/Fietro/Imposter "Pietro".)
> 
> I'M INCREDIBLY GAY FOR SCARLET WITCH!WANDA. HOLY SHIT. We didn't get Aaron and I am displeased by this. So I had to make another fic for Pietro and Wanda. Hope you enjoy it. Any thoughts/comments are deeply appreciated!❤️

*

Dying felt like molten-hot iron tearing through Pietro's body. Quicker than his superspeed.

He couldn't outrun what it was.

Facing the truth happens with Pietro hunched over on his knees, struggling for air, coughing and gasping noisily onto wooden, sour-smelling, and dusty floorboards. His lungs feel swollen up tight. Shriveled. Blackened and _deadened_ with rot.

The entity over him slowly waves her hand.

Reddish-glow orbs form, pulsating like semi-gelatinous masses and blinking along with Pietro's heartbeat. The next inhale feels _healing_. Intoxicatingly real. Drool hangs between Pietro's lips. He stiffly moves himself into a half-crouch, his bare back flexing.

Everything aches.

Pietro stares up, dizzied.

What looks like a rustic cabin bedroom enshrouds into a living dimensional darkness. Every corner of it vanishes. Mystical and occult sigils flare with a scarlet energy-force. "Wanda?" Pietro murmurs drowsily in Sokovian. He's freezing without any clothes.

It's not Wanda.

But it _is_ her… it _is_ Pietro's twin sister… and somehow he knows before knowing, and Pietro feels exhaustion straining all of his muscles when his naked body fights to get up. Scarlet Witch's irises morph into a dark red brilliance. Her face emptied.

 _"Šta je ovo…?"_ His words jumble around in Pietro's mouth, but come out clear. _"Kako…?"_

"I retrieved your body deep from the rubble of Novi Grad."

Her own words sound in English, but heavily accented in their mother language.

Pietro shuts his eyes. "Are we… _kuća_ —no, no," he groans, pressing his hands roughly to the sides of his head and clawing down. His head feels swollen too. Full of Scarlet Witch's — Wanda's — his twin sister's despair and love and rage. The knowledge sinking in of what's happened since Pietro's death. He tries again in English. "You went back home to Sokovia?"

"What was left of it," she rasps.

"… Did we win?"

Scarlet Witch's cape flutters as tendrils of luminescent red vapor emerges out. Pietro has fragments of the battle, protecting the Key from Ultron and his sentries, protecting the Avengers and the innocent citizens of Sokovia, and protecting Wanda.

"I lost."

The burden of this hits him, and it's not as composed as Scarlet Witch appears.

She fought _alone_.

_Without him._

That grief and loneliness and righteous fury wrecked her. Pietro can see it. It felt like sometimes they were never meant to be separated from each other, or so he believed. Pietro lets out a wheeze, forcing himself upright. His knees tremble.

He shivers. "Any chance you have sweatpants laying around? My balls are going to fall off."

A kind of crimson mist drifts from Scarlet Witch's fingertips. It expands, whirling around Pietro from the neck-down and disappearing in moments. A triple-weaved suit of grey and deep burgundy-red identical to Scarlet's Witch's costume.

Pietro says nothing about it, or his lack of wounds, combing his fingers into his silver-tinged hair.

"That's a interesting book you've got there," he says, nodding sardonically to the Darkhold hovering in front of Wanda at her chest-level. "Looks new… looks like you've been busy… so, what, our first mistake was Nazis, and now _you're_ … you're an all-knowing and all-powerful hell goddess, is that it…?" Pietro's expression hardens. "What have you done?" he asks.

"What I want," Scarlet Witch declares, and Pietro believes her.

That's the unnerving part.

"You can't do whatever you want whenever you want, Wanda. Remember what we said when you got your powers?"

Pietro hated when they returned Wanda to him after her first volunteer trial, and how helpless and pale she was. They sat together in his cell-room. He cradled her in his lap and kissed her little eyelids when she wept from the pain. Wanda eventually reached out for a piece of stale bread from Pietro's tray, and she could summon it to her with her new telekinetic abilities.

The Maximoff twins spent hours discussing it — no matter what they changed into, it would be to do good.

_Uphold the basic principles of the universe and do good._

Scarlet Witch's irises glimmer into bright red. The smoky sigils around her thrum and reverberate.

"By any means necessary," she recites. It's the words given to them when they were young and knew nothing. It's what her and Pietro repeated to each other before leaving to face against the Avengers at the research base. It's _wrong_. "Even the tiniest of bone fragments existed in the rubble. You still existed, Pietro. I only nudged the fabric of reality to correct itself."

Pietro's teeth grit. None of this is what his Wanda would say.

"We can't reverse death… if I was supposed to die in Sokovia, then that was it."

"You were supposed to live," Scarlet Witch murmurs, tilting her head eerily. _"So now you will."_

For a brief moment, Pietro imagines it's a veiled threat instead of a promise. Maybe it's both. Maybe she can't tell the difference anymore. He feels a rush of fierce bitterness amplified by her darkened and volatile emotions lurking beneath the surface.

In his subconscious, and hers, Vision yells out _"you don't get to make that choice FOR me, Wanda!"_ like a memory — and Pietro realizes it's the same. She's done this before. The void-dimension lengthens around Scarlet Witch, and her eyes burn brighter. Before he can step in the doorway, Scarlet Witch lurches and firmly grasps onto Pietro's chin, bringing them close.

"You were dying, Pietro…"

Firelight gleams in Scarlet Witch's reddish, curly hair. Her thumb pets gently over the round of Pietro's chin.

"Before the Battle of Sovokia, you were dying. Your body could not handle the Scepter's power manifesting inside you. You were deteriorating. List's assistant said no one had survived the test, but you and I had… we were special. We had the will to live for our revenge against Tony Stark and the Avengers. But it wasn't enough. I was the only one keeping you here with me…"

A quiet and shuddery breath escapes Pietro.

He suspected for months that his powers were draining, and draining him. Pietro didn't have to ask for Wanda to stabilize him or his mind — she did because her instincts sought him. Is it the _same_ right now? Is he only alive so long as Scarlet Witch wills it?

"You're operating on fear, Wanda," Pietro examines her, dully reciting her memory. "You cannot control that fear… only your own."

Her expression twitches.

Pietro reacts fast, jabbing her face with a closed fist and knocking Scarlet Witch unconscious. He grimaces. Without his superspeed to throw an impact, Pietro wasn't sure if it would work. Reckless, yes, but when running out of options…

"Shit, shit," Pietro mutters in Sokovian, gathering her in his arms and lowering carefully.

Curls of reddish hair flutter over Scarlet Witch's mouth.

Pietro brushes her hair away with his fingertips, half-smiling. She looks older. She's technically much _older_ than him now. "Maybe what you needed was some rest," Pietro quips, leaning over and pressing a long, affectionate kiss between her eyebrows.

_At the end of the episode, you realize it was all a bad dream._

_None of it was real._

A younger Wanda conjures herself into his memories.

Pietro's smile widens sadly.

"You know I love you, don't you?" he says, mumbling and crossing his legs in. Pietro adjusts her, cradling Scarlet Witch's neck and head one-armed. "More than anything… I loved you and wanted to die by your side. I wanted us together at the very end."

He hopes somehow she can hear him. _Feel_ him. Pietro won't give up on his twin— not while he's still living and breathing.

Outside this cold cabin bedroom, the front door rattles open.

Wanda strolls in, holding a brown paper bag of groceries, and stops mid-hum to gawk at Pietro.

"… who are you?" she breathes.

_Shit._

*

**Author's Note:**

> Sokovian translation (using Serbian, based on Wanda's nursery lullaby and the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet used in AOU):
> 
> \- Šta je ovo? [What is this?]  
> \- Kako? [How?]  
> \- kuća [home]


End file.
